What should we believe?

14 January 2006 — 11:00am

SOON after Mamdouh Habib arrived in chains at the US base at Guantanamo Bay he was taken to the prison hospital to be examined by military doctors. It was May 2002 and the broken Habib had just spent six months in an Egyptian jail being interrogated by that country's notoriously ruthless security police.

The evaluation of Habib by the military psychiatrist was blunt, according to a summary revealed to the Herald. Habib reported "a history of intrusive thoughts of an incarceration in a foreign country two months prior, nightmares of beatings and increased startle responses as well as hyper-arousal symptoms".

It was the first of many indications that Habib had been tortured in Egypt.

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The military psychiatrist diagnosed Habib with post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and a third psychiatric disorder. His "issues", according to the psychiatrist, included "recollection of torture he experienced in a foreign country". The US doctors began treating Habib with antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs.

Days before that evaluation, the then Australian attorney-general, Daryl Williams, told reporters that "US authorities have advised that Mr Habib is in good health". His statement followed similar public assurances by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, that Habib was "in good health", after he was transported to a US military prison in Afghanistan on the way to Guantanamo Bay. These assurances on Habib's health followed briefings by the Department of Foreign Affairs to reporters insisting the Australian Government did not know how Habib had been delivered to Egypt and why, six months later, he was in US custody in Guantanamo Bay.

Ever since, the Howard Government has refused to acknowledge that Habib, an Australian citizen, was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan and "rendered" to one of the most torture-prone security services in the world.

One former Howard cabinet minister told the Herald he could not recall a government official ever raising a legal question over Habib's transfer to Egypt when it happened.

Today, the legal implications of Habib's case and scores like it have triggered a global debate on the CIA's renditions policy, which is straining relations between the US and its European allies. Governments in Germany and Italy have been caught up in investigations of these kidnappings, while the CIA's inspector-general in Washington is reportedly investigating as many as 36 cases of so-called "erroneous renditions". The first of scores of expected lawsuits against the CIA has been filed in the US.

Habib's description of his transfer from Pakistan to Egypt is consistent with accounts from many other documented cases. He describes agents dressed in black, with tattoos, cutting off his clothes, videotaping him, forcing suppositories into his anus, blindfolding him and bundling him onto an aircraft in Pakistan. "It had all American people at the front and Egyptians all at the back," Habib recalled. "They talk. The pilot speaks English with an American accent." Through the entire flight he could hear a television playing American action movies.

According to a recent investigation by The Washington Post, the CIA's rendition group went into overdrive after September 11, 2001, employing scores of paramilitaries, analysts and psychologists, embracing what some critics called "a Hollywood model" of flashy operations. A critical player in the group was a former CIA Soviet analyst "with spiked hair that matched her in-your-face personality" who was "too quick to order paramilitary action", said one former CIA veteran.

Habib's US lawyer, Joe Margulies, believes the Australian was one of the first targets of the rendition group.

"The President signed an order on September 17, 2001, which is still classified," he says. "That order gave the CIA the unilateral authority to conduct renditions without White House or other executive agency approval."

When Habib was picked up by Pakistani police in early October 2001, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation was already searching for him. The then ASIO chief, Dennis Richardson, believed Habib had been in an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and ASIO had intercepted a phone call he made to his wife, Maha, in Australia about the time of the September 11 attacks. ASIO raided his home soon after, and much of its file on Habib was sent to US intelligence agencies, a senior ASIO source told the Herald.

In Pakistan, Habib refused to say whether he was in Afghanistan before September 11, and still will not discuss it. His refusal is undercut by accounts from others in the Afghan camps, including the Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks, that they saw Habib there.

When Habib was first arrested, the FBI and ASIO interviewed him in Pakistan, both believing he was a serious security risk. Margulies believes that when they made little headway Habib was turned over to the CIA. "He is interrogated and tortured by the Pakistanis and then they send him to Egypt," he says. Margulies also believes it is inconceivable that ASIO was not informally told that the CIA rendered Habib to Egypt.

The Howard Government, backed by the Opposition, has so far stonewalled any Australian inquiry into Habib's rendition. Late last year Habib's Australian lawyers filed a writ with the High Court over the Government's alleged complicity in his rendition and torture.

Today, a year after Habib was released from Guantanamo Bay, there is growing evidence that the Australian Government suppressed critical facts in the case and repeatedly misled the public about what it knew about his rendition and torture.

Hundreds of documents on the case, requested by the Herald under freedom of information law, have been released to the paper heavily censored. Some, along with interviews with former government officials, politicians and lawyers, raise serious questions about a government cover-up.

Specifically, one former government official has told the Herald that despite the Government's claims that the Egyptian Government never confirmed Habib's imprisonment, ASIO was involved in its own negotiations with the Egyptian intelligence services to allow an Australian intelligence officer to interrogate Habib in the Egyptian prison.

Habib has long claimed that during his time in Egypt he was interviewed by an ASIO officer. He also alleges he was shown documents from his home in Sydney that had been seized in the ASIO raid.

According to one former government official, Richardson set up "a parallel process" to question Habib while he was in Egypt, "seeking to get access through intelligence links" with the Egyptians.

On this account, ASIO officers travelled to Cairo two or three times believing they would get access to Habib. But the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, said ASIO did not get access to him. "No Australian official, including ASIO, was ever provided with access to Mr Habib," his spokeswoman said.

Richardson has conceded in the Senate that ASIO understood Habib was in Egypt by mid-November 2001, several weeks after he was last interviewed by ASIO in Pakistan. Significantly, Richardson also stated that ASIO "established to our own satisfaction that he was definitely there in February 2002 … through our own activities".

Among the FOI documents is a "Talking Points" note for backgrounding the media on Habib's case in early March 2002. In it, Foreign Affairs media officers are instructed to tell reporters that the Government had recently received "credible advice that [Habib] is well and being treated well". Another cable indicates this advice came from ASIO. Soon after, reports that "an Australian intelligence officer has been told by Egyptian authorities that Mr Habib is well and being treated well" appeared in several Australian newspapers.

At that time, according to Habib's consistent statements, he was being routinely beaten by Egyptian interro-gators. He said he was "always handcuffed and sometimes suspended from hooks on the wall, was kicked, punched, beaten with a stick and rammed with what can only be described as an electric cattle prod". They also threatened him with drowning and assaults with dogs.

Habib recounted these experiences to the US military psychiatrist on his transfer to Guantanamo Bay. A few days after his medical examination on May 13, 2002, a team of Australian officials, including a federal police officer and an ASIO officer, arrived to interrogate him. They were accompanied by Australian consular officials who was to assess his health and welfare.

In his first meeting with the Australian officials, Habib repeated what he told the US psychiatrists, that he had been tortured by Egyptians. He described in detail the beatings, shocks and abuse. The consular officials were also told by his US captors about Habib's medical evaluation, although in how much detail is unclear.

While the federal police and ASIO officers who interviewed Habib knew he was on medication and heard his allegations of torture in Egypt, the police chief, Mick Keelty, told the Senate it was agreed within the Government that the claims would be followed up by Foreign Affairs.

This effectively killed any inquiry because Downer insisted his department was blocked by Egypt's official denial that Habib was ever in its custody. Downer and Williams then released a brief statement quietly dropping the claim that Habib was "in good health", saying instead that Australian officials found that he was being held "in safe and humane conditions" at Guantanamo Bay. There was nothing to indicate Habib had told three government agencies of his rendition and torture.

Habib's claims were finally aired in a US courtroom in late 2004 and triggered a dramatic shift in strategy by the US and Australian governments. The Pentagon abruptly announced that military charges would no longer be brought against Habib, which forced Australia to insist on Habib's release from Guantanamo Bay. The alternative was a long US court case in which Habib's rendition, Australia's role in it and his alleged torture in Egypt would be aired.

Next month the Government is expected to file a response to Habib's writ in the High Court. But there is little expectation it will concede any new information unless compelled to do so by the court.